A Warrior Made, A Warrior Remains
by SpellStorm
Summary: Ellen's childhood and her life after the siege of Trinity. Two-Shot. R&R!
1. A Warrior Made

**A Warrior Made**

_She was kidnapped from her family, raised to be something she's long since grown to despise. Her life has never been conventional or even enjoyable, and this is what has been made._

She doesn't remember much about that night. It's not as if there was a huge commotion or anything, and she was so young and so tired. She's asked before, more than once. But Paige never tells her anything, just give her that look, the one saying it makes no different. The last time she asked, she regretted it. She hasn't brought the word family up since.

So she goes about her life one day at a time, watching, learning, training to be something she has very little knowledge of. But she knows she must work hard, to please Paige and the man named Wylie who comes to check up on her every so often.

As she gets older, she begins to understand more things: that she's different, could even be considered special; that her life isn't conventional, isn't enjoyable, and she's not who she wants to be, who she should want to be; that she has no choice in what she becomes. Her life, and even she herself, are being molded into something she's growing to despise. She is a warrior, a being born only for the purpose of fighting and killing. She is a murder machine. And that's all she can ever be.

She is not Ellen Stephenson, transfer student at an insert-name-here school. She is simply Ellen, the last known Weirlind.

That's the only thing she is. A warrior has been made.


	2. A Warrior Remains

**A Warrior Remains**  
_She was saved from her life, shown that she can live a normal existence. But what remains is something no one can change._

* * *

_She's different now_, they say. _She's herself._

"What do they know," she mutters to herself.

She sits in the clearing, staring without seeing, unaware of what she's looking at while acutely aware of the sounds surrounding her. Paige taught her this. It's only a small part of all her training that has stuck.

They say she's different, but they didn't know the before her well enough. She isn't different, just more than what she was when she came to Trinity. And she proves it in every bout with Jack, every bout with the ghost warriors. She proves it in the way she gazes at Waymaker while cleaning it, her eyes caressing it's blade. She proves it in her everyday conversations, when she talks to Jack and Will and Fitch about soccer, when she talks to Seph about the lasting after effects of drinking so much Mind-Burn, when she talks to Madison about the new powers gained from the Dragonheart.

They say she's herself, but they don't know she was never _not_ herself. Growing up the way she did created the only her she knows. They don't get that there is no other Ellen. Maybe now she's Ellen Stephenson. That's how she introduces herself. But maybe that's still just a cover-up for being simply Ellen. Maybe Ellen Stephenson will never truly exist.

She doesn't talk to anyone about it. They wouldn't understand. Not Jack; he's a warrior, but he's only known for a couple of years. Not Seph; he grew up knowing he's a wizard, but he wasn't pushed to be something he didn't want. Not Madison; she isn't even Weir, and she can hardly control her newfound abilities, let alone monitor her sister Grace's descent into the world of magic. Maybe Jason, if he was still alive. He'd always known he was a wizard, and from what little Seph knows, she's learned that he was pushed to train, until he refused.

No one has gone through what she has, and no one knows what to say. She doesn't even try speaking of it. If others mention Weirbooks or torture or games - even the innocent board type - she freezes up and turns away. Weirbooks remind her of the one stolen away by Paige; the one she's gotten a brutal beating for after sneaking it away one night long ago. Torture reminds her of the pain she;s always known, the pain she hardly knows how to live without.

And games remind her of the goal set for her, the goal she'd hoped never to reach, the goal she'd finally realized was her only future.

Her life was determined the moment she was born, the moment Paige snatched from her crib and her home and her family. She'll never be a normal girl, a normal anything.

But maybe that's alright. Maybe it's okay that a warrior remains.


End file.
